Mulchman's Blog

I’m back. The seat on the plane was awesome. It had tons of leg room and you could even recline and put your feet up. It also had a 12v power outlet so with the help of an inverter I bought I had power for the laptop.

Anyway, it’s over and it was a good trip.

Amber let me upgrade to business class (instead of regular Economy or Economy Plus) and the perks are already noticeable. I’m sitting in the United lounge thing with power, internet, private bathrooms, and assorted drinks.

I’m sipping on some whiskey and coke not with the intention to get drunk but with the intention to kill some anxiety. Being in this calm, quiet, and peaceful lounge room place with classical music going is certainly helping to kill some pre-flight jitters.

The ride here on the limo bus was quite smooth and quick; there was no traffic at all. Waiting to get a boarding pass looked to be a nightmare but I quickly spotted an entry for those who had already checked-in online but still needed to check luggage. I waited about 5 minutes, checked in my bag, and upgraded to business!

Security was quite pleasant and easy as well. There was no huge line like in the US and I didn’t even have to take my shoes off! I quickly found the club and its been nothing but grins since.

The local time is 2:20 PM and the plane starts boarding at 4:10 PM so I have plenty of time to relax. If only they did massages in this club…

Well, it’s almost time to board the limo bus and head to the airport. Japan has been fun and if not for the super high cost to fly & stay here I might be inclined to come back again for non-business purposes. Can’t wait to get back to the USA!

I went to Tokyo Disneyland today. I got up at about 10 and then wasted a lot of time figuring out what trains to take and finally ended up getting there at about 1 something. The train stations have the line names (like Yamanote or Keiyo) in English so it’s just a matter of keeping track of which stop you’re at and where you need to switch. All the stops had the names in English somewhere and most of the time they’re visible from inside the train itself.

Anyway, Disneyland was really crowded and really hot. When I’m as hot as I was today I get really frustrated really easily especially if I have to wait in huge lines with no breeze. Such was the bulk of my day. The main ride that I HAD to ride was Space Mountain because back in the day I was forced to ride this ride by my dad (bribed, actually) and hated it but since that time I’ve learned to love roller coasters. The first place I went when entering was Space Mountain and it was broken at the time. I got a ‘fast pass’ thing for it though in case it came online later. The ‘fast pass’ is a ticket thing you can get every x number of hours and it lets you jump to the front of the line at a certain time window. So at 1 PM-ish the ‘fast pass’ I got allowed me to jump the line for Space Mountain between 8:45 PM and 9:45 PM… great. Anyway, I never ended up using the ‘fast pass’ or getting one for any other ride.

So, frustrated at the heat and Space Mountain being closed I started walking around and got to the tea cups and rode alone. My dad and I when on tea cups will spin the mother as fast as we can get it to go but this time I just kind of sat there and spun it lightly. I then walked around the whole park getting mad at all the long lines. I made my way back to Space Mountain and got in the regular line. About 10 minutes later I got out of the line as the wait was an hour plus.

I then found a motion ride called Star Tours with only a 10 minute-ish wait. It was indoor and had awesome A/C. It was like a Star Wars rip-off but it had Star Wars characters in it (like R2D2 and C3PO and one of those fish guys from Return of the Jedi). It was hilarious hearing these guys speak Japanese and I was cracking up during the ride. I rode this ride a total of 4 times during the day when killing time waiting for my Space Mountain window @ 8:45. Star Tours never had a wait longer than 5 minutes for the other 3 times, either, which is kind of a shame because the A/C was so good in there.

After Star Tours I got some food – a piece of ‘chicken and vegetable pizza’ from some random place. It was weird… no sauce and a bunch of random vegetables like corn and finely diced other stuff that I have no idea what it was.

After pizza I waited at Space Mountain again but got out of line after waiting like 10 minutes. I then went to some Pooh Hunny Pot ride. I waited about 30 minutes. The ride was a group of 3 honey pot shaped cars that drove around through a Pooh type story. The cars weren’t on the track and didn’t do crazy roller coaster stuff so Amber could have gone on it with me if she were here!

After Pooh I went on the It’s a Small World After All ride thing which is a boat ride through some crappy dolls of different ethnicities and countries singing It’s a Small World After All. I’ve never wanted to drown myself so bad… but I had a purpose – I was killing time until Space Mountain.

After that I went to the runaway train ride thing and waited a whole hour and twenty minutes to ride it. It’s so boring waiting alone and in the heat for that amount of time. I can’t even eavesdrop because no one is speaking English. I was the tallest person in the park, though. I did take something away from the day and that is if you’re about to wait in a long (time-wise) line by yourself you have to be prepared bathroom wise. You don’t have anyone to hold your spot so if you gotta go you have to hold it or get out of line.

After the train I did a Swiss Family Robinson tree house walkthrough thing and then went in a bunch of stores and spent some money. I also did a Pirates of the Carribean boat ride (totally different now and it includes Captain Jack Sparrow from the movies). This boat ride had a surprise drop too which totally threw everyone off. It wasn’t a stomach losing drop but if Amber knew it was there she would not have gone. Slow boat ride rides like this aren’t supposed to have drops; anyway.

I did Star Tours 3 more times (as mentioned previously) and had some food and beverage (I picked up something I thought was water but it was flavored and tasted like a gatorade or something). By this time it’s 8:10 PM so I still can’t use my ‘fast pass’ and I’m still walking around killing time and waiting for the Space Mountain line to be reasonable and finally it was! The wait-line sign said 20 minutes! Finally, I can get in line for Space Mountain!

So, I jumped in line and finally rode Space Mountain on my own accord without any bribery (it was like 50 cents back in the day; real lame dad!). It was pretty fun, actually. I’m not sure how close it was to the one I was forced to go on as a kid but this one was super dark and super fast. There weren’t any stomach losing drops at all but it was really fast and had really tight turns (like Flight of Fear at Kings Dominion). I was sitting by myself and had no one to shoulder brace with so I was all over the cart left-to-right-wise. When I got out the line was HUGE and it was time that I could use my ‘fast pass’ but I didn’t.

I left and took the train back. I’m now eating a cup-o-noodle with chop sticks and drinking lots of water to make up for all the sweating earlier. I fly out tomorrow and want to start preparing mentally and physically for the flight so I need to go to bed to get a good nights sleep before getting up at about 8 AM to start my normal week day routine.

The flight home leaves at 4:55 PM local time on the 21st but I arrive at 9:30 AM PDT also on the 21st – I arrive before I take off due to time changing magic!

So we went to Akihabara which is like _THE_ electronics area and I ended up getting a similar item to the R4 for Amber’s DS. It’s like the R4 but allows you to use SDHC sticks as well. I’ll hopefully be getting some roms from one of the guys here tomorrow. We took a train from Shinjuku to get there.

I’ve taken public transportation in some other cities and this one seems to be pretty on-time and very informational as to where you will be in relation to stairs and such when you reach the next station. I’ve also yet to see a way to get in and out w/o paying. I guess you could jump the ticket area but it would be pretty obvious. To get in you need a ticket or some kind of pass that you swipe as you enter and you also need that ticket/pass as you exit. If you buy a cheap ticket and travel a distance further than what that ticket was meant for you’ll get slammed in the knees as you try to exit and still have to pay the difference.

Anyway, I like the trains.

After Akihabara we went back to Shinjuku and found a place to eat at. We had some wings, chopped beef steak, some random skewers of stuff, some sushi (I actually ate some this time), and lots of beer. The longer I am here the more my mind realizes I’d be okay to eat some of the weird stuff and the more my stomach can tolerate the wierd stuff. I live by my stomach, though, and so as long as it is happy I am happy. If my stomach is miserable then I am miserable. My mom and Amber will certainly agree to this. My mom has been with me on numerous occasions when I’ve been sick (read: throwing up) and, while I’m not as bad as my dad, I’m still hugely pathetic and unable to do anything. Anyway, after dinner we walked around for a bit and finally made it back to the hotel.

I’m going to see about going to Tokyo Disneyland tomorrow as the other guys have some plans with some people who work here. I still need to find out if the limo bus thing takes me there or if I’ll have to take a train or cab. I’m not sure I’d be able to navigate the train system yet on my own but would certainly give it a shot.

Anyway, enough typing for now!

Apparently there was an earthquake today that shook the hotel we’re staying at. Another guy and I were out visiting a temple that is close by and didn’t feel anything but another guy who was in the hotel at that time says it was shaking quite well on the 31st floor.

After visiting the temple we walked around a department store and then an electronics store. It’s so miserable out in the heat.

I explored some more on my own in the morning until getting frustrated by the heat. I bought some stuff for people back in the states and some sun glasses for me as mine broke randomly while walking through the hotel lobby when first arriving. I went in a ton of stores including department stores and electronic stores. They offer a nice break from the heat and sweat running down your legs.

I did lunch with another guy at a curry place which was pretty good. It was the first time I had curry. I thought it was something completely different than what it was and I would certainly do it again now.

After lunch I washed some clothes then met up with 2 of the other guys for dinner. We ate at a favorite place of one of the guys and it was pretty good, too. We had some wings, some kabobs, and some other random items plus beer. We also took the train there so I got to see how the train system works.

I’m so glad I brought 3 extra pairs of contacts. My eyes have been killing me lately with the late nights and the smoking in restaurants. Yesterday my left eye was killing me so I switched out my left contact and then today my right eye was killing me so when I wake up tomorrow I’ll get a fresh right contact. The contacts are 2 week disposable contacts but I wear them much much longer until they start to get unbearable and so yesterday and today I reached that mark. I’ve forgotten just how much I hate smokers as in Washington people can’t smoke in public buildings and its extremely awesome! It’s too bad this isn’t a world wide system.

Anyway, time for bed!

New pictures are up on the private webpage thing for those family members who have the URL.

The days are flying by and I’m finding it hard to sit down and blog and go through the effort to post any pics (to the private webpage) and what not.

Yesterday (Wednesday) I had a little free time so I walked around the area near the hotel. There’s a building right across from the hotel that has two towers and each one has an observation deck on its 45th floor so I went up to both and looked around. It’s so hot and humid here that walking around quickly becomes annoying and places don’t have the A/C cranked either so that doesn’t encourage going out either.

I did McDonalds for dinner last night and had some chicken sandwich w/ fries for approximately $6.70. We then all went to a Sushi place where the other guys ate. Some of the Sushi items looked decent so I might be inclined to try some later on in the trip – just not yet. A lot of places allow smoking so I tire very quickly of having to mess with my eyes and smell the smoke.

Today we were pretty busy with meetings and preparing for meetings so there wasn’t any time to explore. We did some place for dinner that turned out to be a Chinese place and I had some fried chicken pieces that were pretty good. I also burnt the crap out of my mouth but had several beers to remedy the floppy skin. I’m also finally figuring out how to use chop sticks – the trick seems to be that the index & middle finger control the top stick and the ring & pinky fingers hold the bottom stick. Before I would only use my index finger on the top stick and it just sucked and never worked and no one seemed to be able to show me how to use them correctly. After thoroughly watching how others use chop sticks I believe I’ve found the secret.

I wish places had knives though as sometimes the chunks of food are way too big (and hot!) to stick in your mouth all at once so cutting items up would be very beneficial. It would also be awesome for cutting up new items you want to try but don’t want to stick some huge glob of crap in your mouth. It also seems like a huge waste to have wooden chop sticks everywhere. And places never have napkins – you get this hot tiny towel thing when you sit down and that’s it – like the kind of hot towel you get when flying first class.

I tried KFC today, too. I had a twister thing and it was okay but it had some kind of weird sauce thing on it like a teriyaki sauce or something. American KFC is definitely better.